Some Were Paralyzed With Fear

Many Loan Officers were paralyzed with fear and didn’t know how to grow their market share, while others were fearless.

In late 2008 and especially early 2009, there were some pretty freaked out loan officers. We all know that many came to the industry because of its promise of easy hours, lax regulations and, most notably, quick cash.

During that time of uncertainty, we experienced two types of loan officers that remained:

Those who were paralyzed with fear and…

Those who were determined to succeed despite the slow-down.

In many cases, those who were determined to succeed didn’t realize that they’d already set themselves apart from the scared folks, because they were either busy reinventing their vision for success in the new norm and “pounding the pavement,” or they were the ones who saw future growth in what seemed like a dying industry with the economy barely limping along.

We saw this day after day from late 2008 until the middle of 2012. We also saw a fair share of attrition during that period. We analyzed the data and what we found was pretty clear:

Exodus clients who continued to personalize their newsletters regularly saw growth month after month, while the Exodus clients who had cancelled their subscriptions had two glaring things in common:

They hadn’t updated their mailing list with their new clients at all, even from the beginning, much less during the collapse.

They hadn’t personalized their newsletters on a regular basis either, and they seemed unconcerned about the relationships they had started.

This glaring discrepancy was what inspired us to create the “Content Help Service.” Not everyone has the “killer” instinct to reach out to their client base via the written word or possess the ability to write creatively or express various topics in writing in a way that works. Being a great loan officer doesn’t always equate to being a great marketer or communicator.

This is our focus because those individuals who share themselves, share their knowledge and become family do infinitely better than those who don’t! This is exactly what the data suggested. It was overwhelmingly clear. One way to say it is, “Those who didn’t communicate with their clients in a real way saw a decline in growth.” Another and I think more accurate way to say it: “Those who took a few minutes a month to be themselves and actually take advantage of the newsletter platform saw consistent growth, even through the lean times.”

The personal relationship created during the home buying and finance/refinance process is real, and if you capitalize on that in a real way your referrals from your past clients will be far greater!; especially in comparison to social media marketing and email campaigns. Referrals from past clients through emails and Facebook don’t even come close.

Let’s face it, email is a recreational endeavor and no one comes home from a hard day’s work to read emails from their Loan Officer or Realtor unless they’re in the throws of a file. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. If you do an email marketing campaign, look at the analytics and you’ll see the open rates are very low. This is regardless of the content, personal or otherwise.

If you look at a multi-channel marketing strategy consisting of email, social media and direct mail marketing, email and direct mail marketing are going to be the best choices. Direct mail marketing has a far greater ROI than email, but email is so inexpensive it makes little sense to not be doing it. You will find that your direct mail marketing brings far more referrals than email for the reasons mentioned previously.

The best bet is to do an assessment of what you’ve been doing, what you’ve done in the past, and view it through the reality of human consumer behavior with high ticket items like home purchases and loans.

Remember, loans are not small ticket purchases and people don’t get the urge to jump in the car and rush to get another mortgage because they were influenced by a great marketing gimmick to do so. Your relationship to your client is the most valuable asset you have. This is what makes someone refer you to others and those they care about.

If you want to learn how to market to your past clients, we’ll offer consultation at no cost. Click here to schedule a time to talk and we’ll show you how easy it really is.

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See what others have discovered using Exodus Marketing!

Share Yourself

It's so important to take the time to let your friends know what you’ve been up to and how you're doing. Taking a few minutes a month to share a little of yourself is the best way... [READ MORE]

Share Your Knowledge

There is nothing more powerful than knowledge. While this adage can take us in many different directions, we know that by sharing your knowledge, along with a little bit of yourself, you maintain... [READ MORE]

Become Family

The result of sharing yourself and sharing your knowledge over time is that your clients consider you part of the family. When you need support or advice who do you call? In 99% of all cases...
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Create Ambassadors

Who represents you out there? Your Friends? Your Family? Your Clients? Family, friends and those you've serviced should be Ambassadors for you and your business? To do this you'll... [READ MORE]

Mailing list accuracy is paramount. By utilizing our Change Of Address Service, your mailing list will be accurate with in 2 weeks of the Post Office’s records. The COA Service is used to compare your mailing list against the United States Postal Services – Change of Address database and returns to us a new address along with the month and year that the move occurred. It requires that the initial address is correct and that the addressee submitted a Change of Address / Mail Forwarding Request with their local post office.

Mail Service

Your newsletters are complimented by our state of the art mailing service. This invaluable convenience costs less than the cost of a postage stamp and includes folding, tabbing, sorting, and of course the inevitable trip to the post office. Once your newsletters are personalized, approved, printed and folded, the mailing process begins. Your mailing list is submitted, through our secure online server. We provide a complete turnkey solution to keep your mortgage marketing or real estate marketing efforts consistent, on time and with no hassles or worries.

Content Help What is it and how much does it cost?

What is it?: Since not everyone knows how to write we offer the content help service. It is no more than a 5-7 minute conversation with your layout rep. Not a questionnaire or forms you need to fill out. Your layout representative asks a handful of business and personal related questions. Nothing too serious however we use the answers to write the personalization for you. It works extremely well and often inspires things to share with your clients that you might not have thought of or were unsure would be worth while. Most people realize they're just reflecting back on the last 30 days or so.

What does it cost?: Nothing, we gladly help you for free. We want nothing more than your newsletter to be successful. Simply put, your success is synergistic with our success.

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4 Color Examples

FedEx Shipping of Extras

When you add Extras to your newsletter campaign, we need want to be sure they are delivered promptly and trackable. Therefore ALL Extras are shipped FedExGround at a fixed discount cost of $9.50 regardless of the amount of Extras you request.

Total Postage

Postage is fixed at .39 cents per mailed newsletter and is calculated as database size x .39

Total Newsletter Price

The Total Newsletter Price is the Database size + Extras multiplied by the Price Per Piece.

Newsletter Price Per Piece

The pricing matrix to the right shows that as the number of newsletters goes up, the price per piece goes down. In other words, the discounts are built into the system.

As you create your quote, the pricing will include the discount based on the total amount of newsletters in your database, in addition to any Extras you add.

From 100 to 149 newsletters the Price Per Piece is .82 cents.

As your market share grows and it reaches each pricing level, the Price Per Piece discount is automatically applied.

Total Newsletter Quantity

Your total newsletter quantity is your database size plus any Extras you’d like to receive.
Extras are added or removed at any time on your client dashboard

What are Extras?

Extras are the number of newsletters you request to be printed and shipped directly to you in addition to what we mail to your client database.

Clients typically add Extras so they can:

► Hand them out to referral partners
► Have newsletters available for open houses
► Make them available in the reception area

Extras can be added or removed at any time on the client dashboard.

Sphere of Influence / Database Size

The amount of records in your client database determines the number of newsletters printed, not including any Extras you decide to add to the overall total (see the Extras [Learn More] for details on Extras).

Personalization Color Choice

While the newsletter and content we provide is in full 4-Color, you can choose to have your personalization in either 2-Color (Black & White) or full 4-Color.
With the 4-Color option, you also have the option of replacing our main page-one article with your own on any issue. The 4-Color option adds $59.00 per issue regardless of piece count.

Newsletter Price Quote Generator

The purpose of this form is to provide you with the costs of using a newsletter. When comparing direct marketing to all other forms of marketing for LO’s and Realtors, the properly personalized newsletter is far more effective at generating referrals.

This is not an order form. It’s a price-quote tool that will email you the price quote.

Please feel free to use it or pass it on to anyone who might have similar interest in successfully increasing referrals.